Yesterday I finally put together the time and the money to go to the P.O. and mail a bunch of old Etsy orders and Foursquares. I also bought stamps, so Etsy orders should not be delayed if you place an order soon… all the more reason to catch up on your Foursquare issues if you’re not a subscriber. There are a number of copies available right now: check ’em out here. There are about four copies of Samar’s SE left (subscribers will receive it as part of their subscription).

Sorry for the delays on Etsy orders placed over the summer. There are a number of similar poetry-related delays, such as I am now working on the May issue of Foursquare, not the September one; I owe chapbook manuscripts and poems for magazines; etc. I was figuring it up a couple of days ago– I’ve had seven jobs and lived in four places since last July (and those places were Alabama, Virginia, New York and Buffalo–hardly local moves). Poetry has not exactly been my top priority. My top priority has been trying to put together enough money to not have to constantly ask my parents to bail me out (it’s like the Wall Street bail-out, but cheaper). So, I apologize for all these delays… but the last year has been weirder than most. Luckily things are calming down now– I have two stable jobs, a stable housing situation, stable health, and lots of ideas for the (now delayed) next four issues of Foursquare. (I’m always looking for submissions, so if you are or know of a great female poet, send me work!)

Hi Jessica,
Why do you use Etsy instead of taking orders through your own press’s website? Especially if you have to fulfill them. Do you get more orders or is it their payment function? I’m curious since I’m setting up to distribute DVDs and aim to do it through my website, cinesouvenir.com.
By the way there’s a cool service through ebay and paypal that prints out postage labels for the standard postal rates. You then stick them on your packages.
Cheers,
Robert

Etsy is easier to deal with. I really hate designing and working with webpages. I don’t have the skill to do it quickly, and I don’t have the time to do it without better skills, nor do I have the time to learn how to do it better. Etsy makes everything a lot easier. Plus, I often get orders from other Etsiers (people who scroll through Etsy looking for interesting stuff) who aren’t poets and who otherwise wouldn’t have heard about Foursquare. People who’ve heard about Foursquare can just as easily go through Etsy as through a website, and Etsy never has glitches the way a website I designed probably would!